2010-07-15

izmeina: a snippet of Escher's circle of serpents (Default)
2010-07-15 10:10 pm
Entry tags:

Spooked by Stuff

Izzie's been a busy serpent. When not snoozing, been slinking about a certain tarot forum drooling over decks and lingering about in book stores and cafes. Squiggling has not got much of a look in at all.

There's been some serious drama at the toxic waste dump that is the Izzie day job but that will have to wait for another post.
Suffice to say that our martyr days are over. No more bravely battling the winter sniffles. We hates wasting time waiting in doctor's surgeries to get sick notes but we hates the goblins even more

Still searching for the perfect Nano cafe. So so missing the lovely old one that darkened its doors some time in April. Minimum requirements are reasonably priced decent coffees, a gorgeous garden, loos, an atmosphere that allows for lingering and wifi friendly. A stash of daily papers and decent magazines would also be nice but not absolutely essential


In spite of the sniffles, still shuffled off to Fremantle library yesterday instead of staying snuggled under the sheets. Had renewed the serpent stash twice already and a third extension would not be possible without presenting the books in person to prove that they still existed
And anyway - 9 weeks was plenty of time to read them all
First one was a pocket guide to psychopaths.
There's a few critters at work with some psycho charactaristics but they are rather more narcissistic. They are simply too vain and stupid to be proper psychos.
Not to mention the subsection of Occam's Razor which requires one never to suspect malice as a motive or explanation when simple incompetence will do.

The second book brought back was about decluttering. Had been doing very well until July last year then suddenly ran off the rails. Then any thought of any serious clutterblitz was soon followed by inexplicable bouts of snooziness
Books, stationery, craft supplies and munchies are the main offenders.

The last book which should have been the most interesting - turned out to be rather uninspiring indeed. Full of fascinating ideas but written in such a patronising and annoying childish tone. If you are going to adapt real life lessons or lectures for a book - then just copying the text word for word will not do at all.
The book was called "The Secret Language of the Tarot". Instead of looking at each individual card and its meaning, it picked sets of symbols and looked for them through the whole deck.
This novel approach is most fascinating and brings up all sorts of insights and is particularly good for procrastinating pythons intending to design their own decks one day

Seen it in Borders the other day for a ridiculous $$47. The price of books here in Oz is absolutely ridiculous. Even an average paperback is an outrageous $$20. Would have thought that with much cheaper books available on Amazon as well as all those ebooks that the book sellers would get their act together but they seem to have gotten worse
They must be marketing to lazy seekers of instant gratification who want everything yesterday

They were supposed to be having a 25% off sale but turned out only to be with vouchers that were in last Thursday's paper. And even with such a big discount the handful of decks on display were not worth bothering with. A pile of fluffy bunny ugliness other than the delightful Dark Grimoire deck for a mere $$35
Had no intention of being tempted of course - was just doing basic research for the emerald serpent tarot.

Strange how all the best books seem to be in the libraries. They are also the cheapest. Never did imagine that the serpent would ever be able to snaffle "The Satanic Verses" But there it was sitting brazenly and ever so temptingly on the shelf just begging to be borrowed. Also added an interesting tome with the title "Snoop" with a black cover with a picture of a keyhole on the centre. Through the key hole you can see a lounge chair and a room full of books. The book is about what you can tell about other people by looking at their stuff.

And today added to the clutterbug stash when slinking by the good old fashioned Elizabeth's bookshop. So much more interesting than all those main street McBook shops that are all the same.
No Stephanie Meyer or other modern vampire misery but lots of Anne Rice and Stephen King. But what especially interested the Izzie was a collection of H P Lovecraft stories just like the one got from the library last November. Izzie's first taste of the strangeness encouraged by wanting to know about the mysteries behind the Dark Grimoire tarot deck. Found the writing long winded and almost Dickensian at first but loved the strange spookiness and especially how the story teller always seems to be a sceptic refusing to believe all the weird stuff going on until it is too late.

There were 3 books in the series "The Road to Madness" "Dreams of Terror and Death" and "Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre" (well not at all by today's standards but Izzie prefers more spookiness and less gore)
So got the two that had not been in the library. They were $$16.95 each which was surprisingly reasonable for US imports with an original USD price of $$14.95
So Izzie's been bad bad bad buying those books. No more now until the post Christmas sales.

Or else the Clutter reaper monster will come in the middle of the dark
izmeina: a snippet of Escher's circle of serpents (Default)
2010-07-15 10:10 pm
Entry tags:

Spooked by Stuff

Izzie's been a busy serpent. When not snoozing, been slinking about a certain tarot forum drooling over decks and lingering about in book stores and cafes. Squiggling has not got much of a look in at all.

There's been some serious drama at the toxic waste dump that is the Izzie day job but that will have to wait for another post.
Suffice to say that our martyr days are over. No more bravely battling the winter sniffles. We hates wasting time waiting in doctor's surgeries to get sick notes but we hates the goblins even more

Still searching for the perfect Nano cafe. So so missing the lovely old one that darkened its doors some time in April. Minimum requirements are reasonably priced decent coffees, a gorgeous garden, loos, an atmosphere that allows for lingering and wifi friendly. A stash of daily papers and decent magazines would also be nice but not absolutely essential


In spite of the sniffles, still shuffled off to Fremantle library yesterday instead of staying snuggled under the sheets. Had renewed the serpent stash twice already and a third extension would not be possible without presenting the books in person to prove that they still existed
And anyway - 9 weeks was plenty of time to read them all
First one was a pocket guide to psychopaths.
There's a few critters at work with some psycho charactaristics but they are rather more narcissistic. They are simply too vain and stupid to be proper psychos.
Not to mention the subsection of Occam's Razor which requires one never to suspect malice as a motive or explanation when simple incompetence will do.

The second book brought back was about decluttering. Had been doing very well until July last year then suddenly ran off the rails. Then any thought of any serious clutterblitz was soon followed by inexplicable bouts of snooziness
Books, stationery, craft supplies and munchies are the main offenders.

The last book which should have been the most interesting - turned out to be rather uninspiring indeed. Full of fascinating ideas but written in such a patronising and annoying childish tone. If you are going to adapt real life lessons or lectures for a book - then just copying the text word for word will not do at all.
The book was called "The Secret Language of the Tarot". Instead of looking at each individual card and its meaning, it picked sets of symbols and looked for them through the whole deck.
This novel approach is most fascinating and brings up all sorts of insights and is particularly good for procrastinating pythons intending to design their own decks one day

Seen it in Borders the other day for a ridiculous $$47. The price of books here in Oz is absolutely ridiculous. Even an average paperback is an outrageous $$20. Would have thought that with much cheaper books available on Amazon as well as all those ebooks that the book sellers would get their act together but they seem to have gotten worse
They must be marketing to lazy seekers of instant gratification who want everything yesterday

They were supposed to be having a 25% off sale but turned out only to be with vouchers that were in last Thursday's paper. And even with such a big discount the handful of decks on display were not worth bothering with. A pile of fluffy bunny ugliness other than the delightful Dark Grimoire deck for a mere $$35
Had no intention of being tempted of course - was just doing basic research for the emerald serpent tarot.

Strange how all the best books seem to be in the libraries. They are also the cheapest. Never did imagine that the serpent would ever be able to snaffle "The Satanic Verses" But there it was sitting brazenly and ever so temptingly on the shelf just begging to be borrowed. Also added an interesting tome with the title "Snoop" with a black cover with a picture of a keyhole on the centre. Through the key hole you can see a lounge chair and a room full of books. The book is about what you can tell about other people by looking at their stuff.

And today added to the clutterbug stash when slinking by the good old fashioned Elizabeth's bookshop. So much more interesting than all those main street McBook shops that are all the same.
No Stephanie Meyer or other modern vampire misery but lots of Anne Rice and Stephen King. But what especially interested the Izzie was a collection of H P Lovecraft stories just like the one got from the library last November. Izzie's first taste of the strangeness encouraged by wanting to know about the mysteries behind the Dark Grimoire tarot deck. Found the writing long winded and almost Dickensian at first but loved the strange spookiness and especially how the story teller always seems to be a sceptic refusing to believe all the weird stuff going on until it is too late.

There were 3 books in the series "The Road to Madness" "Dreams of Terror and Death" and "Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre" (well not at all by today's standards but Izzie prefers more spookiness and less gore)
So got the two that had not been in the library. They were $$16.95 each which was surprisingly reasonable for US imports with an original USD price of $$14.95
So Izzie's been bad bad bad buying those books. No more now until the post Christmas sales.

Or else the Clutter reaper monster will come in the middle of the dark
izmeina: a snippet of Escher's circle of serpents (Default)
2010-07-15 11:07 pm
Entry tags:

The Write Stuff?

Just been experimenting with a certain text toy doing the rounds of blogville

Stolen from "The Well Tempered Plot Device"

Leonard Nimoy, currently *** directing his own resurrection in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, is the author of two books of poems rightly considered too hot for bookshops to handle. They're distributed solely through Athena poster shops, in the same series of icky little volumes with tinted pages and silhouettes of weeds that has given the world the if anything even more deathless works of the legendary Susan Polis Schutz, the Colorado Sappho. (You must know the stuff: "Our relationship / is beautiful / because / it is ours / because / it relates / to us.")

All you have to do is read through the following (genuine) sample poem, and then use your skill and judgement to supply the missing lines from the ones that follow. (These include about 80% of the text of Nimoy's second book of poems, which by a novel inspiration consists almost entirely of excerpts from the first.) Then turn to the end of the article to find out how you scored. First, the specimen:


and tossed in the box

Out came


I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!




and then the poem itself

"Rocket ships / Are exciting / But so are roses / On a birthday

"Computers are exciting / But so is a sunset

"And logic / Will never replace / Love

"Sometimes I wonder / Where I belong / In the future / Or / In the past

"I guess I'm just / An old-fashioned / Space-man."


In the box it goes


I write like
Arthur C. Clarke

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!




Guess it's the space-man that does it

Then there's the puzzle

And now it's over to you:

(i) I love you not for what I want you to be ... (2 points for the missing line.)

(ii) I loved you then for what you were ... (3 points.)

(iii) I miss you / And not only you ... (3 points)

(iv) My love for you is not a gift to you ... (1 point.)

– and the hardest one: here you have two lines to guess of a three-line poem.

(v) I am me ... (2+4 points.)


I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!




So bad that it's good? What other explanation could there possibly be

Putting it all together we get


I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!




The whole is obviously less than the sum of its parts



And now a real writing analyzer

I actually write like
a moonstruck lunatic possibly actually wearing a straightjacket

I Actually Write Like Analyze your writing!



Can already see the creepy Fool in the Dark Grimoire Asylum

I actually write like
someone about to go on a killing spree

I Actually Write Like Analyze your writing!

izmeina: a snippet of Escher's circle of serpents (Default)
2010-07-15 11:07 pm
Entry tags:

The Write Stuff?

Just been experimenting with a certain text toy doing the rounds of blogville

Stolen from "The Well Tempered Plot Device"

Leonard Nimoy, currently *** directing his own resurrection in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, is the author of two books of poems rightly considered too hot for bookshops to handle. They're distributed solely through Athena poster shops, in the same series of icky little volumes with tinted pages and silhouettes of weeds that has given the world the if anything even more deathless works of the legendary Susan Polis Schutz, the Colorado Sappho. (You must know the stuff: "Our relationship / is beautiful / because / it is ours / because / it relates / to us.")

All you have to do is read through the following (genuine) sample poem, and then use your skill and judgement to supply the missing lines from the ones that follow. (These include about 80% of the text of Nimoy's second book of poems, which by a novel inspiration consists almost entirely of excerpts from the first.) Then turn to the end of the article to find out how you scored. First, the specimen:


and tossed in the box

Out came


I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!




and then the poem itself

"Rocket ships / Are exciting / But so are roses / On a birthday

"Computers are exciting / But so is a sunset

"And logic / Will never replace / Love

"Sometimes I wonder / Where I belong / In the future / Or / In the past

"I guess I'm just / An old-fashioned / Space-man."


In the box it goes


I write like
Arthur C. Clarke

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!




Guess it's the space-man that does it

Then there's the puzzle

And now it's over to you:

(i) I love you not for what I want you to be ... (2 points for the missing line.)

(ii) I loved you then for what you were ... (3 points.)

(iii) I miss you / And not only you ... (3 points)

(iv) My love for you is not a gift to you ... (1 point.)

– and the hardest one: here you have two lines to guess of a three-line poem.

(v) I am me ... (2+4 points.)


I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!




So bad that it's good? What other explanation could there possibly be

Putting it all together we get


I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!




The whole is obviously less than the sum of its parts



And now a real writing analyzer

I actually write like
a moonstruck lunatic possibly actually wearing a straightjacket

I Actually Write Like Analyze your writing!



Can already see the creepy Fool in the Dark Grimoire Asylum

I actually write like
someone about to go on a killing spree

I Actually Write Like Analyze your writing!